We continue the round table format. Trying to tighten it up a bit but still make it conversational. This week we have Sarah Vincent, Michael Clark (in studio,) Benjamin Higginbotham, Cariann Higginbotham and Jared Head all leading the discussion. And of course YOU, the community of TMRO!

Vika or TGK is an oxygen generating system for spaceflight. It is a SFOG, or solid-fuel oxygen generator, a kind of chemical oxygen generator. It has been used on the retired Mir space station and the International Space Station. It was originally developed by Roscosmos to supplement the Elektron oxygen system on Mir. A Vika module, also known as a "candle", contains about one liter of lithium perchlorate and can provide oxygen for one person for 24 hours.
The canister contains powdered sodium c...

So here’s everything you ever wanted to know about perchlorate:
It is used as a medicine (known as goitrogen), and it has been well studied. In the body, it competes with Iodine for uptake by thyroid cells. These cells need Iodine in order to make systemic autonomic control hormones that regulate metabolism. The protein in charge of transporting Iodine into the cell is 30 times more likely to transport perchlorate than Iodine, so it is a very strong inhibitor of uptake. Even so, our bodies …

When we are talking about terraforming Mars we should keep in mind this research:terraforming Mars
Unfortunately, processing all sources available on Mars would only increase the pressure to about 7% that of
Earth
This research was supported in part by NASA through the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft and Mars Odyssey THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) projects. Use data gathered from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

Regarding US-China cooperation in space: I’ve read that there may actually be a chance that the government’s attitude might change. It’s due to the way congress elections turned out. The person mainly responsible for maintaining that provision (forbidding NASA from cooperating with China) lost re-election. So while there’s no guarantee, it’s possible that the provision may be removed at some point in the future.

NASA is always eager to cooperate with China, they just aren’t allowed to. If that provision ever goes, you can be sure that something will happen fairly quickly after that.